Phantasmagoria
by Senashenta
Summary: Roxas and Ven are young Hunters, traveling the world, always on the road, tracking down and destroying dangerous supernatural creatures. Now they've come to Destiny Islands, lead there by clues from their brother, Cloud, to find something there that's killing local high school kids. And after Destiny Islands, who knows where they could end up next? (KHxSPN AU/crossover.)
1. Prologue: Cheap Motel

**Disclaimer:** _Kingdom Hearts_ characters and concepts belong to Disney and Squarenix. Various _Final Fantasy _characters and concepts belong to Squarenix. _Supernatural_ characters and concepts belong to WB, etc. This fic belongs to its' author.

**Notes:** THIS FIC. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. It started off as a kind of quirky idea and then SNOWBALLED into something that I'm 100% sure will BREAK MY BRAIN IN SOME WAY by the time it's finished. lmao I have like ten pages of extensive notes about this, and NO CONCRETE ENDING to the fic figured out. IT COULD GO ON FOREVER FOR ALL I KNOW, so I guess we'll see how long it runs/how long my attention-span is for it. WISH ME LUCK.

On SPN characters in _Phantasmagoria_: This fic is mostly KH AU inspired by SPN, but some SPN characters will have minor cameos later on.

**PHANTASMAGORIA  
Prologue: Cheap Motel  
By Senashenta  
**

"_Well if walls could talk,  
Man, the stories they'd tell,  
Holding up the roof on a cheap motel."  
-From "Cheap Motel" by Southern Culture on the Skids_

It seemed strange to Roxas that even as picturesque a place as Destiny Islands actually had its' share of seedy hotels. Somehow he'd had the idea, based on the scenery, that the Ocean Breeze Motel would be nicer than some of the places he and Ven had stayed in before. Alas, it was not to be: the paint was peeling, the sheets on the beds were a mottled, stained and faded floral print and he had already counted six cockroaches since they'd walked in the door a whole ten minutes before. But it was cheap and no one asked questions about he and his brother's somewhat haggard appearance, so Roxas supposed he couldn't really complain.

"Seven." He announced as he kicked the door closed behind them.

Ven, who had already deposited his bag on the bed and was setting his laptop up on the crooked table by the front window, looked over, brows furrowed in confusion. "Seven what?"

"Cockroaches. Seven cockroaches." Roxas frowned, blue eyes watching the insect scuttle across the tiled floor. He stepped on it, nodded at the quiet _crunch_, then continued on to dump his duffle bag on the bed that Ven hadn't already claimed. He wasn't fond of bugs. "Six now."

"Probably more." Ven commented idly. "Check the fridge if you want a more accurate count."

"Gross, Ven. Thanks for that mental image." Roxas made a face in response to the grin Ven shot him, then kicked his shoes off and dropped heavily down onto the mattress next to his bag. "I'm fucking exhausted."

"_Language_, Roxas. What would Mom think?"

"Sorry, sorry. _Freaking _exhausted."

"Much better. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah." Roxas lifted his head a little, looking over toward his brother. "What're you doing?"

Ven gestured vaguely toward his computer. "Gotta log everything, remember?"

"Ugh," Roxas' head fell back down onto the bed. "I can't believe you still do that."

"It's important, Roxas! Especially this time." The other blonde was frowning deeply now. In front of him, his laptop binged and the main screen came up, multi-colored motes of light over dusky black. Ven had used that picture for his background for as long as Roxas could remember. Now Ven waved his hand again, trying to impress on his brother the importance of his borderline-obsessive record-keeping. "It's the first time we've seen a real jorogumo."

Rolling his eyes, Roxas adjusted himself on the bed until his head was on the lumpy pillow and flung an arm up over his eyes. It had been years since Ven had started keeping his digital journal of their travels and cases and he always got the most excited about the things they had never encountered before. Roxas sometimes thought he got _too _excited, all things considered.

Ven started pulling up his files and charts while Roxas closed his eyes and tried to relax.

It had been a long couple of weeks thanks to Ven's precious jorogumo. Just tracking the thing _down _had taken over a week in itself. It had moved erratically from place to place, household to household, victim to victim—and had been very hard to pinpoint. Four cities, one trashed 1998 sedan and nearly four hundred miles later had landed them in a back alleyway in Dalmasca, facing down a very pissed off spider-lady.

Eight legs, it turned out, were very hard to deal with, even for two relatively experienced, if young, Hunters.

It hadn't helped that neither of them had any clue whatsoever how to take down a jorogumo. They had barely even _heard_ of the things before picking up the trail. So when they finally pinned it down, they had gone in packing all the basics: guns, knives, holy water, silver, salt and iron. In the end a consecrated iron crowbar through the chest had done the trick—the bitch had gone down screaming, melting into an unrecognizable puddle in the space of a few breaths.

Roxas and Ven hadn't escaped completely unscathed, though. Scrapes and bruises and Roxas thought he might have cracked a rib when he had been body slammed into the side of a building at one point—but he didn't bother to mention that to his brother. He would only fret, and it wasn't like Roxas couldn't sneak a potion later when Ven was sleeping, anyway. They still had a few left in their supply, after all. He just had to keep a lid on the pain until then.

"Hey, Roxas."

"Mm?"

"You think Cloud's ever seen a jorogumo?"

The sound of typing stopped and even though Roxas didn't look over he could feel his twin's eyes on him. He stifled a sigh, lowered his arm away from his face and stared up at the ceiling. "Who knows? Maybe."

They hadn't heard from Cloud since before the jorogumo hunt and hadn't actually _seen _him in over six months. It was worrying, but they knew that Cloud had his own jobs, his own hunts, his own priorities. Ven, however, was always commenting on their brother's whereabouts, experiences or knowledge. Ven thought about Cloud a lot—and his thoughts unfortunately leaked down the bond between them into Roxas' mind as well. It was hard to pretend he wasn't concerned for Cloud when residual worry radiated from Ven off-and-on all day long.

Roxas finally looked toward Ven. The other boy was staring down at the keyboard in front of himself absently, fingers poised on the keys but not actually moving. His journal was up on the screen in front of him, his most recent entry partly written and the little cursor blinking as it waited for him to continue.

"You know a couple weeks is nothing, Ven. Sometimes we don't hear from him for a month or two."

"I know." Ven forced a smile and turned back to his laptop. "It just sucks, is all."

Roxas made a vague agreeing noise and tucked one arm back under his head.

At least they had something to keep them occupied for the time being while they waited for Cloud to get in touch with them again. Shortly before they had sniffed out the jorogumo's trail, their brother had sent them some digital files on another possible case—one that had lead them to Destiny Islands. It had gotten derailed temporarily thanks to the whole spider-monster debacle, but with that taken care of in Dalmasca they had hopped the next bus out of the city and made their way to the seaside.

_So help me God, we are _never _taking the bus again._

The thought barely registered before Ven gave a snort and informed him, "you're the one that _wrecked the_ _car_, remember?"

"Yeah, well," Roxas grumped, "next time we're stealing another one. That bus was _shit_."

"Roxas."

"_Crap_, jeez, _sorry_."

It had been hot, stuffy and overcrowded. The onboard washroom had been out of order and the entire bus had smelled of stale sweat and something sickly sweet that Roxas hadn't been able to identify at the time—and still couldn't. It had almost made him nauseous. Then, of course, there was the kid in the seat behind his that had continually kicked at his seatback for the whole journey—and whose mother had done nothing to stop it.

Ven had kept himself occupied with his computer, and he wasn't one to complain about that sort of thing anyway, but Roxas had thoroughly _suffered _for the entire ten-hour ride. Getting off at the end of the trip had been more than just a relief, to say the least, and Roxas had never been so glad to swap out modes of transportation—the bus to the ferry that took them out to Destiny Islands—in his entire life.

But Ven _was_ right, he had been the one to crash their (technically stolen) car in the first place. It had been in-between towns as they tracked the jorogumo, he'd been running on three days with no sleep, and he had simply drifted off. The next thing he knew Ven was shouting in his ear and they were rolling headfirst into a conveniently placed oak tree.

It hadn't been that bad of an accident. Neither of them had really been injured. But it had put the sedan out of commission and left them with no choice but to abandon it, haul all of their packs the entire hike to the next town and then find an alternative mode of transit from then on out.

All things considered it was probably a minor miracle they had managed to catch up to the jorogumo _at all_.

_Christ, I'm tired._ Roxas stifled a yawn.

"Crash if you want." Ven commented without looking away from the laptop screen, fingers tapping away at the keypad again. "I'm going to finish this up and then go over the files Cloud sent us. We can pick everything up tomorrow once we've both gotten some sleep and something to eat."

Normally, Roxas would have protested. He didn't like resting when his brother was still working—it usually felt wrong to him, unfair, like he was taking the easy way out and putting too much on the other teenager. But he was still running on a week-and-a-bit of nothing more than catnaps off-and-on, he was sore from the beating he'd taken in Dalmasca and Ven was very pointedly sending reassuring feelings his way via their mental link.

So after a moment of hesitation, the blonde finally muttered a vague agreeing noise, untucked his arm from behind his head and rolled onto his side, bundling the lumpy pillow up under his head in as comfortable a position as he could manage.

There was a long silence again, broken only by the _taka taka taka_ of Ven's typing, and then, as if an afterthought:

"…goodnight Ven."

And then, a minute later, an echoed reply:

"Goodnight Roxas."


	2. Chapter 1: Ready To Die

**Disclaimer:** _Kingdom Hearts_ characters and concepts belong to Disney and Squarenix. Various _Final Fantasy _characters and concepts belong to Squarenix. _Supernatural_ characters and concepts belong to WB, etc. This fic belongs to its' author.

**Notes:** So I've got a million notes on this project and I've decided to share some of them, so I've set up a tumblr – **khspn ** – and I'll post notes and info on the various creatures, weapons, characters and whatnot as the story progresses. Probably one or two entries per chapter. (This tumblr is about 50% to help me keep everything organized for myself, too, haha.)

**PHANTASMAGORIA  
Chapter One: Ready To Die  
By Senashenta  
**

"_We shoot without a gun,  
We'll take on anyone,  
It's really nothing new,  
It's just a thing we like to do."  
-From "Ready To Die" by Andrew W.K._

It had taken nearly ten hours of unconsciousness, two cups of morning coffee and sneaking a potion while Ven had been in the shower, but Roxas was finally starting to feel more-or-less human again. He was, of course, still tired, but that was hardly something new. He was always tired nowadays—they both were.

"_Way _more than seven."

Roxas, who was in the middle of pouring a third cup of coffee—strong and black with no sugar—looked over toward the bathroom door at his brother's voice calling out, just in time for Ven to open the door. The other blonde had a dingy towel wrapped around his waist and a disturbed look on his face. Steam billowed in the bathroom behind him and the built-in ceiling fan squeaked and sputtered as it tried to vent it.

"Come again?"

"_Cockroaches_, Roxas." Ven shuddered slightly and cast a borderline-fearful look back over his shoulder before flicking the light off and moving into the main room, over to dig through his bags for a reasonably clean set of clothes. "There are _way. More. Than seven._"

"I said six. I killed one, remember?"

"Well there are way more than _six_, then. They're_ everywhere_. Did you wash that mug before you used it?"

Roxas blinked down at the cup in his hand. "It seemed clean." Still, he dumped the coffee into the sink and pulled another cup from the rack, washing it quickly before pouring himself a refill. "There's enough for another cup if you want some."

"No thanks."

Ven almost never drank coffee—he didn't like the taste and by the time he added enough milk and sugar to make it palatable there was pretty much no point in drinking it anymore. He much preferred tea or hot chocolate. Unfortunately for him, most motels didn't supply either of those, which left him with whatever he and Roxas happened to have brought with them. Usually just water. He occasionally considered carrying a box of tea in his bag, but then again even that small amount of space could be used for something more useful—salt or heartless ash or ammo, or any number of other things.

"I'm going out to get something to eat in a sec anyway." Dressed now, Ven sat on the edge of the bed to pull his boots on, then slid his switchblade into the right one, snug against his ankle. Once he stood, he nicked his pistol from the nightstand—it got tucked into the waistband of his pants, nestled against the small of his back under his shirt. Last was a small packet of salt, a few ounces at best, that went into his jacket pocket. "There's a diner down the street, I spotted it on our way past yesterday." He grabbed his wallet and headed for the door, pulling it open and then glancing back toward his brother. "I'll bring you something. Pancakes or eggs?"

Roxas was leaning against the counter next to the mini-fridge. He glanced over the rim of his coffee cup toward Ven, eyebrows lifting. "Can't I have both?"

"Greedy."

Blue eyes rolled. Roxas pushed away from the counter, moving across the room to sit at the rickety table by the window, the chair creaking under his weight. "Give me a break, Ven, we haven't had a decent meal in days and you know it."

"Right, right. Big breakfast it is." Ven chuckled. "Back in a bit."

Stifling a yawn, Roxas waved a hand as his brother left, door clicking shut behind him, then took another swig of his coffee before setting the mug down and sweeping his gaze across the table in front of himself. Ven's laptop was across from him, open and facing the other way, and he knew even without looking that dozens of tabs were pulled up, websites and charts and anything else his twin could find relating to their new case. The rest of the table was littered with newspaper clippings, most of which Cloud had sent to them while they had been in Balamb Gardens, before the jorogumo hunt. The rest they had found themselves over the previous couple of days after they had left Dalmasca.

Someone—or, more likely, some_thing_—was killing local high school kids.

And Roxas and Ven were there to figure out what.

o-o-o-o-o

When Ven said "big breakfast", he really meant it. Half an hour after he left he arrived back at the motel carrying three takeout containers and a tray with two large cups of tea and one additional cup of coffee. Two of the takeout containers were for Roxas—three pancakes, two eggs, bacon, sausage and three slices of toast; maple syrup, butter and strawberry jam on the side. Ven himself has an omelette and a couple slices of toast. It might have seemed kind of uneven, really, but Roxas had always had more of an appetite than his brother, particularly post-hunt.

Setting everything on the counter by the sink, Ven pulled his gun from his waistband and placed it alongside, then dug in the bag for the plastic cutlery, selecting a spoon and then setting about adding sugar and milk to one of the cups of tea.

"Thirty-five bucks." He said without looking up from what he was doing. Having stirred in two packets of sugar and a couple creamers worth of milk, he took a testing sip of his tea before reaching for another sugar pack. "It was the last of my money, by the way. I dunno what you've got left, but we'll have to figure something out soon. We can't put everything on Cloud's credit cards, it just makes things harder for him in the long run."

Their brother kept a handful of credit cards at any given time, and both Roxas and Ven had duplicate cards for the accounts. Cloud tried to help them out in any way he could, but neither of them liked to put charges on the cards unless they had no choice. They preferred to make their own way—which meant that they had gotten very good at hustling pool, and Ven had long ago figured out how to hack atm machines for cash. Not the most honest—or legal—ways to go, but it kept them fed and clothed and armed, and gave them a roof over their heads—most of the time, anyway: they occasionally spent the night out in the elements despite all that.

"Here. Breakfast."

Ven gestured toward the containers, picking up his portion and then walking the short distance to take a seat at the table opposite his twin. Roxas was hunched over, engrossed in newspaper clippings, a pen in his hand and taking notes as he read. Pushing his computer out of the way, Ven leaned to peer at his brother's scribbled notes, then settled again and flipped the takeout container open. He was already eating before Roxas looked up, pushed the notepad toward him and stood to retrieve his own food.

"So, it looks like everything here started a couple months back." Roxas informed him, and Ven nodded, chewing. Roxas opened the first of the boxes of food designated as his—pancakes—and then dug in the bag for the syrup and butter. He slathered both over the cakes, then cut them into pieces and carried the container back to the table, dropping down into his previous seat again. "At least, that's as far as Cloud tracked it before he sent us the info." Stabbing at the pancakes with his plastic fork, he scooped up a bite and stuffed it into his mouth, making a pleased sound in his throat. They were sweet and fluffy and delicious. "Mm."

"You couldn't trace it back farther?"

"Nope. Not yet anyway." Roxas had a bad habit of talking with his mouth full—something that Ven harped at him about all the time—and now was no exception. He took another bite of pancake before continuing, slightly muffled. He got a _look _from Ven, but his brother chose not to comment this time. "Seems the first death was this girl—" He dug through the newspaper clippings, then pushed one toward the other boy. "—Sadie Barrowman. Sixteen years old. Kind of a loner, but not a bad kid. Average. Nothing that really stands out."

"Mmhm." Ven continued to eat as he skimmed the article, then swallowed before stating, "they… didn't find all of her, though. I read through some of these last night before I went to bed."

"Just her torso and head. All her limbs were missing."

"Nice." Ven made a face, but Roxas only shrugged. Very little bothered either of them anymore.

"Anyway, no sign of her arms or legs."

"Yeah, and they still haven't found them, right?" Poking at his omelette a little, Ven sighed, wrinkling his nose before taking another bite. He chewed thoughtfully, then reached for his knife to spread jam on one of his slices of toast. _Just_ jam, though, no butter—he didn't really like butter.

"Exactly. Same with the next victim, three weeks later. A guy this time. Sixteen again."

"Haru Watsumi."

"Yep, Haru Watsumi, seventeen this time. Same deal. Found his torso and head, and one arm this time. The other arm and both legs were missing."

"Third victim?"

"A week after Haru's body turned up, another girl went missing. Seventeen-year-old Joanna Milner. Her body was found two days after that." Roxas frowned a little, but continued eating as they went over everything. "This time her limbs were all there, but something'd cut her open—most of her ribs and half her spine were gone."

"And there was one more after that."

"Right." Roxas agreed, and took another bite of pancake before standing to retrieve the coffee Ven had left by the sink for him. "Just last week, a third girl; Velvet Redding. This time they found everything—except her head. She was decapitated."

It occurred to Ven that it was probably a bad sign when neither of them even flinched at the word _decapitated_. But they had both heard worse things in their short lives—and seen worse things, too. A decapitation was pretty much par for the course, as far as the twins were concerned.

Over in the kitchenette, Roxas opened the coffee and took a long drink of it. It was actually pretty good, especially for diner coffee—better than what the motel had provided, anyway. Not that he was all that picky—he would basically drink anything so long as it was at least lukewarm and vaguely coffee-flavored. Ven was a tad more picky with his tea, preferring earl grey or English breakfast if he could get them. He also sometimes drank green tea, which Roxas _really _didn't understand because he'd _tasted_ the stuff, and it just reminded him of green beans.

"Well, from what I can tell none of them hung out in the same circles or had the same hobbies. Haru and Velvet were both on the same softball team, but the other two weren't." Ven, finished with his eggs, pushed the container away and drew his laptop closer again, the half-eaten piece of toast dangling from his lips. He lowered it a moment later as he continued, "and like you said, two of them were sixteen and two were seventeen."

"So the only thing connecting them is the missing body parts."

"Well, that and _this_…"

Roxas was just opening the takeout box containing the rest of his breakfast, and he picked it up and wandered closer, leaning to peer at the computer screen when Ven turned it toward him. "Huh."

Ven grinned a little around another bite of toast. "They all went to the same high school."

"Right, well." Roxas started in on his bacon and eggs, "we'll go there tomorrow."

o-o-o-o-o

Destiny Islands High School was one of three high schools on the Islands and the only one that required all of its' students to wear uniforms. It had a boys' soccer team that had won the championships four years in a row now, a girls' basketball team that almost always made it to the finals and a swim team that was known to be the best around. And its' academics were just as impressive: the chess team was top-notch, the debate club won all their meets and the overall grades throughout the school itself were some of the highest in the country.

But despite all of that, the students who attended Destiny Islands High were just normal, average kids for the most part. Kids with high grades and good sports skills, but kids nonetheless, fond of music and movies, and worrying about dates and dances and how much PDA they could sneak in the school hallways between classes.

"This is a really stupid idea."

"No, it's not."

"_Yes_, it is."

"_Roxas_, it's the best way to get intel and you know it. And stop fiddling with your tie, you're wrinkling it."

"Yes, _mother_."

Ven sighed heavily and reached to swat his brother's hands away, then straightened the other boy's tie, tightening it and smoothing at the fabric briefly before returning his own hands to his lap. "Now don't touch it again." Roxas didn't reply, instead just rolling his eyes silently.

While neither of them were particularly fond of uniforms or ties, Ven had always been more willing to wear them than his brother. Roxas was very uncomfortable in formal clothes and always had been—he probably always would be, as well. Which was likely why he always fidgeted when forced to wear them. His twin could at least be trusted to sit still and look relatively composed.

"You know when I said we'd come here, I didn't mean _like this_. We're never going to fit in, you know."

"Sure we will. We're both good at pretending to be normal."

"Ven, we haven't gone to public school since we were twelve!"

"Your point being?"

"This isn't like trying to be club kids at a rave."

"I know."

"There's a strict hierarchy here. Serious social rules. And we don't know _any _of them."

"We're fast learners."

"_Ventus_, would you _listen _to me?"

"I _am_ listening, Roxas. You're worried—what? That they'll figure out we're Hunters?" Ven's lips quirked lightly. "They don't even know Hunters exist. At worst, they just think we're weird and don't talk to us, and we have to think of another plan. You just don't want to have to go to school again."

"What I remember of it was pretty shitty." Roxas grumped, frowning deeply.

"Roxas—"

"I mean what I remember _sucked_."

"Better."

"It's just that we never really fit in with the other kids or anything, you know?"

"I know." Ven nodded. "But we're just going to have to try. We need the information and—oh. Here she comes."

They had been waiting in the office of the school for some time now, while the vice-principal checked their records and spoke to their brother. They had called Cloud the night before and explained the basics of their plan—so that the call from the principal wouldn't be a complete shock to him. He had, somewhat surprisingly, answered his cell phone for the first time in a while. It had been a relief to both of them to hear his voice, even if the call had been brief and to the point.

They had also faxed their files to Destiny Islands High "from their previous school", which really just meant they had borrowed the fax machine at the library down the street from their motel. The phone number for said "school" of course lead back to one of their contacts—someone they knew in Traverse Town, the older sister of a good friend, who always filled in for them when they needed a person to pretend to be school administration.

The vice-principal, Mrs. Turner, had welcomed them when they had arrived the following morning, dressed presentably and trying to make a good impression, and had had them take a seat in the office while she went over their records and called their contacts. That had been nearly an hour ago, which, along with the tie, was part of why Roxas had been getting so impatient.

"Well, boys," She was smiling when she finally came out of her office, hands full of papers and notebooks. "It's a little last-minute, but everything's worked out. It's too bad your brother couldn't be here in person, though."

"Sorry," The tone to Ven's voice was apologetic, "but he works abroad and he's very busy." It was even technically true.

"Yes, he explained all that." Mrs. Turner nodded knowingly as she paused in front of them. "But while your family situation is unique, that doesn't mean you aren't welcome here. I'm sure you'll fit in in no time."

Roxas had to stifle a snort at that. He managed, which was good because if he _had_ snorted Ven would have elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. Either that or stomped on his foot—he had done it once before in a similar situation and actually broken one of Roxas' toes. He had apologised over it for months after the fact.

"Well, in any case," Mrs. Turner continued, smiling again, "we're working on class schedules for the both of you, but it'll probably take the rest of the day to get everything squared away, so you'll be starting here tomorrow morning."

Ven returned her smile, charming as ever. He was good at it. "That's great. Thanks Mrs. Turner."

"You're welcome, sweetie." Her smile widened for a moment, and then she seemed to remember that her hands were full of papers. "Ah, yes, these are for you. The admission forms were faxed along with your school records, but we also need you to fill out our medical forms in case of an emergency. They list any allergies or health conditions and emergency contacts, that sort of thing."

She handed them over. They each took one—and they would fill them out, of course, though pretty much all of the information would be fake.

"We also have agendas for you. Here." She held out two thick booklets, one for each of them. Again, they would keep them on hand for the time being… but in the end they knew the books would get thrown out, and probably within just a few days. "They have our school rules and the lyrics to our school song, that kind of thing. They also have day-to-day calendars for keeping track of homework, tests, due dates, after-school activities…"

"Thank you." It was the first thing Roxas had said to her since they'd first arrived and introduced themselves. Mrs. Turner beamed at him. She seemed like a very nice woman, Ven thought.

_Don't get too attached._

Ven almost startled at his brother's silent comment. _I know. I won't. _

Despite his reassurance, he would probably get attached to everything here, anyway, at least to a certain extent. He always did. Roxas seemed to have an easier time detaching himself from things than his twin.

"Do you boys have any interest in extracurricular activities?"

"Extracurricular… activities?"

"Yes. You know, sports or clubs?"

"Oh… um." Ven hesitated, unsure how to respond.

"I like sports." Roxas spoke up, making Ven blink in surprise. "I played baseball at Traverse High." He glanced sideways. "And my brother likes computers and literature, if you have anything to do with either of those."

"We have a drama club," Mrs. Turner supplied, "and they're performing _A Midsummer Night's Dream _at the end of the semester, if you like Shakespeare, Roxas?"

"Ah, actually, I'm Ven."

The woman flushed a little, clearly embarrassed by her mistake. "Oh dear. I'm sorry, you just look so much alike…"

"We're twins, it comes with the territory."

"Oh yes, I know. We have another pair of twins attending here already." She smiled again. "I'm sure you'll meet them. They're very popular around school."

Another pair of twins? That could be interesting. They had never met other twins before, even in all of their travels and with their unorthodox upbringing. For a moment Ven wondered if their relationship was similar to the one he had with Roxas—sharing everything, including their thoughts and emotions.

"Well." Shifting a little, Mrs. Turner crossed her arms, the gesture clearly absent in nature. "I'd love to chat with you boys some more, but I've got to get back to work. You can find your way out from here, or do you need someone to show you?"

Roxas shook his head and stood. "We can find out own way."

Ven stood as well, brushing at his pants a bit without even thinking about what he was doing. He gave an appreciative smile. "Thanks for everything, Mrs. Turner. We'll be seeing you."

"Not _too _often, I hope." She gave a little wink before turning to head back to her office.

Roxas was already halfway to the door and Ven had to scramble to catch up, snatching his brother's forms from the chair beside the one Roxas had occupied. He always forgot the little things like that. Once they were out in the corridor and the door was closed behind them, he handed the papers over and then fell into step beside his twin. Curiously, he opened the agenda and began flipping through it.

"So what do you think, Roxas?"

"I already told you I don't think this will work."

"Yeah, I know, but…"

Sighing, Roxas lifted a hand to run his fingers through his hair. "But you're right, we need more information. And there's always gossip and rumors where there are high school kids."

"True." Ven agreed. Then he smiled slightly, closing the agenda and looking sideways at Roxas. "I think it'll be interesting, one way or another."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Always fascinated by normality."

Ven's lips quirked. "Everyone's fascinated by what they don't have."


	3. Chapter 2: High School Never Ends

**Disclaimer:** _Kingdom Hearts_ characters and concepts belong to Disney and Squarenix. Various _Final Fantasy _characters and concepts belong to Squarenix. _Supernatural_ characters and concepts belong to WB, etc. This fic belongs to its' author.

**Notes:** For those here from just the _Kingdom Hearts_ fandom, "SPN" stands for "Supernatural". It's a TV show with disturbingly hot guys that's made of utter awesomeness. TLDR; GO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW. :D

Boring chapter is boring. =/

In other news, I think I'm addicted to my own fanfic. This is sad beyond all reason.

**PHANTASMAGORIA  
Chapter Two: High School Never Ends  
By Senashenta  
**

"_Four years you think for sure,  
That's all you've got to endure.  
All the total dicks,  
All the stuck up chicks,  
So superficial, so immature."  
-From "High School Never Ends" by Bowling For Soup_

The twins woke early the next morning. Breakfast was pop-tarts they had picked up at the local 7-11 the night before, washed down by barely-warm motel room coffee leftover from the previous evening. Ven refused to drink the stuff, but Roxas gulped the caffeine down like his life depended on it. Even though they often rose before dawn on hunts, he still couldn't seem to get used to it. To say he wasn't a morning person was putting it lightly.

They both took their turns in the horror show that classed as a shower, then dressed in their newly-acquired school uniforms: a short-sleeved white dress shirt with plaid pants in a pale blue and a matching tie. The material was light, probably because of how warm the weather was there. Heavy, thick material would have been much too hot to be comfortable.

Ven had gone out last night and bought them book bags and supplies—which, unfortunately, had had to go on one of Cloud's credit cards—and so each of them tossed in their agendas and the medical paperwork they'd been given at the school along with everything else. It was all filled out, though completely full of false information, of course. The only thing that wasn't a lie was where Roxas had written in his obscure allergy to kiwi fruit. He had figured it didn't matter if they knew that much about him.

Standing beside the crooked table, Ven was pondering if he should bring his laptop with him or not. Across the room, Roxas was going through his duffel bag, weighing out his options. After a moment of consideration he tucked one of his pistols into the bottom of his book bag, along with a spare ammo clip and a container of salt. Then, as an afterthought, he threw in the remaining pack of pop-tarts.

"Ah… Roxas, I don't know if that's a good idea." Ven's tone was hesitant. "The gun, I mean. What if you get caught with it?"

"What if I get caught _without_ it?" Roxas' meaning was obvious—if something _happened _and neither of them was armed at the time, then what? Ven understood, of course, but was just trying to be cautious. "Besides, you've got your knife. I saw you put it in your boot, just like always."

Truthfully, neither of them was particularly comfortable with going _anywhere _completely unarmed, anymore. Ven shifted from one foot to the other, considering whether or not to rethink the switchblade before deciding to keep it. As long as he was careful no one would know, and he just felt safer with it on his person.

"Just make sure no one finds out."

"Well obviously, Ven." Roxas rolled his eyes. "Who's going to be going through my bag, anyway?"

"Other students. Teachers. The janitor_. I don't know_." Ven made a face at him before going back to making sure he had everything he needed, right down to a calculator and a brand-new case full of pens and pencils. It was so apple-pie _normal _it was almost laughable. "You know how people are. Curious. _Nosy_. And we're gonna be The New Kids. We've got to be careful."

"Yeah, okay, I get the point. You know, you're a really fucking bad motivational speaker." And then, before Ven could even comment on his language, "—sorry. You are a really _uninspired _motivational speaker."

"Nice use of vocabulary, there."

Roxas had to grin at that. "I try." This was followed by a slight frown as blue eyes cast around the room, his right hand rubbing at the opposite wrist absently, almost uncomfortably. "Can't find my bracelet."

Ven glanced down at his own arm out of habit. "Check the bathroom?"

Neither of them carried good luck charms or even necessarily believed in them, though they had heard rumours that they existed. They didn't wear amulets or enchanted jewellery. But they did each wear a matching bracelet—black and white checkers, Roxas' with a black edge and Ven's with a white one. They had been gifts from a close friend of theirs back in their childhood home of Twilight Town, and they had been wearing them for so long that they felt rather naked without them.

"Found it!" Roxas' voice called from the washroom, echoing faintly in the enclosed space. He appeared in the doorway, already sliding the bracelet into place.

"Good," Finally deciding against bringing his computer with him, lest it get stolen or broken—or, God forbid, someone snooped into it and found his journals—Ven flipped his book bag closed and snapped the latch into place, "because if we don't leave now, we're going to be late for our first day of school in ten years."

o-o-o-o-o

Considering their day job, it was probably ridiculous that Ven—and, to a lesser extent, Roxas—found themselves kind of nervous once they reached the high school. But then, while they were good with monsters and demons and creatures of all kinds, neither of them was particularly used to social situations, especially with people their own age. For the most part they were used to keeping to themselves, outside of a select few others, mostly people they had known since they were small.

Now they stood on the front doorstep of Destiny Islands High School, dressed in matching uniforms and carrying matching bags, expected to fit in and behave like normal teenagers. Except they had no idea how to _be_ normal. They had spent almost their entire lives training and hunting and very little of them being average.

"Come on, let's go." Roxas lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck, the gesture almost awkward.

The two of them had been standing just below the front steps of the school and now headed up them and across the front courtyard. A few kids were still milling around out there, but most were already inside, getting ready to head to their classes. Roxas and Ven, of course, still had to pick up their schedules and find their lockers, but at least they knew the way to the office, since they'd been there the day before.

"Everyone's staring at us."

"Of course they are."

"This is going to suck, I can already tell." Pausing at the front doors, Roxas pulled them open and waited for Ven to step past him into the building before following close behind.

The staring only got worse once they were inside. Ven hesitated just inside the doors, but Roxas got him moving again with a shove to the small of his back—Ven squawked indignantly at being pushed, shooting a _look _over his shoulder at his brother, whose lips were quirking into an amused smirk already. They fell into step together as they started down the hall, trying to ignore the way scrutinizing eyes followed their every movement.

School was going to be a stressful experience, Roxas could already tell.

"Hopefully we won't have to be here long."

"Depends on how long this hunt takes us."

"Yeah, but I don't know how much of this I can take."

"Oh, you'll be fine, you big baby. You're adaptable."

"Kind of have to be."

"Tell me about it."

Mrs. Turner wasn't there when they arrived at the office, but she had left everything with the secretary for them—their class schedules, locker assignments and even gym uniforms. They took everything and thanked the secretary, who had already gone back to her work before they even made it out of the room.

"How are we even supposed to find anything?" Ven frowned down at the schedule in his hands. His gym clothes were tucked under one arm as he studied the paper. Science, math, physical education, then lunch, followed by history, geography and finally English lit. Not that that meant anything to him, since he had no idea where any of those classrooms were. Or, for that matter, where locker number 249 was. "Maybe we should go back and ask if they can find someone to show us…"

Roxas' expression echoed his twin's, identical twisted lips and furrowed brows. "Well," He began, and looked up, eyes skimming over to the lockers across the hall from them. "Locker 221 is right there, so 249 shouldn't be too far from here. Just follow the numbers, right?"

As for himself, he was relegated to locker number 113, which really could have been all the way across the school for all he knew. But apart from that, he also wasn't sure how he felt about he and Ven having lockers at opposite ends of the building. Quick comparisons of their schedules assured him that they at least had most of their classes together, the exceptions being history right after lunch hour and English lit at the end of the day.

"We're going to be wandering around lost all freaking day."

"I'm sure it won't be _that_ bad…"

They both looked up when the bell rang, watching for a moment as the other kids all began scrambling to their homerooms. The hallway emptied surprisingly quickly, given how crowded it had been only a couple of minutes before, leaving the two of them standing along in the corridor in no time.

"Okay, um," Ven shifted from one foot to the other and back again before chewing on his lip a little, thinking. "Lets' just go to homeroom and figure out the whole locker thing later. Right?" Shuffling his things around, he stuffed the gym clothes into his bag—they barely fit, but it worked—and tucked his schedule into his pants' pocket. "It says we're in science room three, so we just have to find the science hall."

"Okay, so how do we find the science hall?"

"I have no idea."

o-o-o-o-o

In the end they'd had to bite the bullet and ask for directions from the secretary. She had given them a vaguely annoyed look, one eyebrow raising slightly, but had told them how to get where they needed to go. It turned out that the science hall was two corridors down, their classroom on the left. Their other classes were easier to find, as they could just ask the teacher of the previous class how to get to the next one.

Classes, it turned out, were more difficult than they had anticipated. Sitting still and taking notes on subjects that were of no relevance to their lives aside, both their science and math teachers had insisted that they stand in front of the class and introduce themselves, though their gym teacher hadn't bothered, and if that was any indication, they still probably had three introductions to go. It was a stressful and uncomfortable experience for both of them, standing before their supposed peers and lying through their teeth.

Lunch hour couldn't come fast enough, and as soon as the bell rang to dismiss them from gym class Roxas and Ven both breathed a sigh of relief. This turned out to be premature, however, when they reached the cafeteria and every single eye in the place fixated on them. Roxas got the distinct feeling that new kids rarely transferred to Destiny Islands High School.

They were both quiet as they crossed the room to get in line for their lunches, still carrying their book bags. There hadn't had a chance to locate their lockers yet—they would do that after eating. It was ingrained in them to eat whenever food was offered—because they often went without for significant lengths of time. And as much as Roxas had packed himself some pop-tarts, something more substantial would be more than welcome.

"So what do you think so far?"

"I think I prefer hunting to listening to lectures on genetics."

They had to be careful what they said as they progressed along the line with their trays, collecting the various bits of their lunches: sloppy joes, apples, dishes of what looked like butterscotch pudding and cartons of milk. Classic school lunch material. With their food procured, they got out of the way of the still-moving line, standing off to the side while they attempted to figure out what to do next.

"_Hey!_"

A hand clapped against Roxas' back and practically made him jump out of his skin—in fact, he barely managed not to drop his tray, spin around and throw the hand's owner across the room into the wall. Instead he jumped and whirled, his food sliding across the tray in a half hazard way, almost tipping onto the ground. Ven caught the edge of the plate of sloppy-joe for him a scant second before it toppled.

"What the hell—"

The boy that was standing behind them was probably about their age, with spikey brown hair, wide blue eyes and the goofiest grin either of the blondes had ever seen. He tucked a hand behind his head, giving a sheepish look. "Aha! Sorry, sorry! Didn't mean to startle you guys!"

They both stared, completely unused to being approached in such a friendly manner. Roxas adjusted his grip on his lunch. Ven shifted awkwardly before offering a tentative smile. "It's, uh… it's okay. Right, Roxas?"

Roxas frowned a bit, but finally nodded after only a short hesitation, forcing himself to relax again. "Yeah… it's okay."

"Oh good!" The brown-haired boy grinned once more, huge and toothy. "Hey, so, I'm Sora! I'm in your math class with Mr. Kripke. I sit by the window?" Lowering his arm, he made a wide, encompassing gesture. "I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Destiny High." Then he perked even more, if it was possible. "Ah, do you want to sit with me and my friends for lunch? I can introduce you!"

"Introduce…" Roxas began, then trailed off when he couldn't think of what to say.

Ven picked up where his brother left off, trying to keep things as normal-looking as possible. "Sure," He agreed, tone cheerful, "that'd be great since we don't know anyone here yet."

Sora, clearly the king of happiness, waved for them to follow him and lead them over to one of the crowded tables. "Guys, hey, look who I found!" He was still grinning and held one hand up to indicate Roxas and Ven. "This is Roxas and Ventus Sloan. They're new here starting today."

"We know that, Sora." A redheaded girl smiled from across the table, the expression fond. "It's not like we have new kids all the time, you know." Then she turned her attention to the blonde boys in front of her. "Sorry guys, but word spreads fast around here. We're a gossipy school. I'm Kairi."

"Plus they're in the same science class as me and Kairi." This came from a tall boy with silver hair and surprising green eyes. He was poking at his sloppy-joe, but paused to look up when he joined the conversation. "And I'm in their gym class, too. We played soccer today. They're pretty good." A slight smirk. "I'm better, though."

"Riku, don't be mean!" Sora frowned at his friend before plopping himself down in an empty seat in front of a tray of food that Roxas and Ven assumed was his. The frown disappeared quickly, though, replaced by yet another grin. "If they're good maybe they should try for the team." He picked up his milk and opened it, taking a drink. "So that's Riku and Kairi." Then he nodded toward the other side of the table. "And that's my brother, Vanitas."

Surprised, Roxas and Ven both blinked at the boy Sora had indicated—who was identical to his brother in every way but hair and eye color: while Sora's hair was a lighter brown, his eyes bright blue, Vanitas' hair was a dark almost-black chestnut and his eyes were gold. Fraternal twins, apparently, while Roxas and Ven were entirely identical. They must have been the other set of twins Mrs. Turner had mentioned the day before.

"Tidus is usually around, too, but he's off talking to the swim coach or something right now." Sora continued as Roxas and Ven finally situated themselves at the table to eat. When his brother reached across to swipe his dish of pudding, he flailed and snatched it back. "Van! Quit it!"

They were officially completely out of their element, but tried to roll with it. It was hard, though, pretending to just be normal high schoolers. Everything they'd learned and experienced in the years since they had first started training to be hunters had taught them not to trust people and to stay out of crowded places when and where possible. Sitting in the cafeteria was uncomfortable, made them both feel surrounded, but they tried their best to deal with it.

"So where are you guys from?" Kairi spoke up again, smiling and friendly. "Did you live in another part of the Islands?"

"No," Ven shook his head, picking up his fork. Roxas was already tucking into his own lunch, though it was clear to his brother that he was listening attentively—they needed to make sure their stories matched right down to the smallest detail. "We're from Junon originally." Taking a bite of sloppy-joe, he chewed and swallowed before continuing, "we moved here last month."

"City boys, then. And really good-looking. Not to mention you're apparently good at sports." Kairi tilted her head, smiling a little more. "You'll be popular around here. The other girls are already all in a tizzy over you both."

Both Roxas and Ven looked up, expressions identically blank.

"The other girls? And you're not?" This came from Riku, who was apparently finished with his sloppy-joe and had moved on to his pudding.

"Well they _are_ cute." The redhead replied with a laugh.

Sora was scarfing down his lunch, but paused long enough to pipe up, "Kairi's way more level-headed than the other girls, though!"

"As if there's such a thing as a level-headed girl at all." Vanitas spoke up for the first time, voice low. He was sitting with his elbow on the table and his chin propped in his hand, a bored look on his face, clearly unimpressed with the entire conversation. "And why do we always have to be the ones to warm up to the new jerks?"

Sora frowned deeply at his brother. "You know, you could try being _nice_, Van."

"I'll put up with them if you give me your dessert." Van offered flatly. It was clearly the best they were going to get from him.

Sora narrowed his eyes, pouted, frowned, then pouted again. He was just reaching for his pudding when Kairi interrupted, laughing quietly, picked up her own pudding and reached to set it in front of Van. Van rolled his eyes, but seemed to accept the substitute and picked up his spoon to start eating. Sora gave Kairi a grateful look—apparently he was very fond of dessert. Or at least butterscotch pudding.

In general, while he was pretty sure he liked Sora and Kairi, Roxas didn't think he was all that fond of Van. As for Riku… well, he didn't seem to be all that talkative, but there had been a tint of cockiness in what he _had_ said so far that irked him just a little.

_Be nice anyway._

He had to stifle a sigh at Ven's comment.

_I'll try, okay?_

_Try hard._

_Yeah, yeah._

"Hey, so," Sora had perked back up again. He tilted his head curiously. "How come you moved to Destiny Islands, anyway?"

Roxas and Ven both hesitated, hedging for time by focussing on their food for a couple of long moments. They didn't really have a good excuse for why they might have moved there. And God forbid they should be asked where they were living—explaining that they were residing in a seedy motel downtown probably wouldn't go over so well. It would just raise more questions than answers.

"Well," Ven began, then swallowed a little.

"Our brother got transferred here for his work." Roxas supplied for him. "He's in construction, so he travels all over for different jobs, but the headquarters are here. Right now he's in Midgar."

"So you guys live on your own?" Sora seemed surprised.

Riku waved a hand lightly. "Well they're our age, right? Not like they're twelve or something."

"Eighteen last month." Roxas said, and picked up his apple. He twisted the stem off of it, dropped it onto his tray, then took a bite, muttering around it, "we're legal to live on our own."

"Maaaaaan, that must be nice!" Sora stretched his arms above his head, then let them fall back down. "Our parents are always on our case about chores and keeping our room clean and homework and all that kind of stuff, right Van?"

Van just uttered an inarticulate noise, not really an agreement but not a disagreement either.

Ven shrugged. "We do fine." Finished with his sloppy-joe, he moved on to his apple, picking up his pudding and holding it out toward Sora. "Here, Sora, you want it?"

Sora positively _beamed_.

"You fed him," Riku groaned and shook his head. "Now you'll be stuck with him for sure."

Somehow, Ven thought he would be fine with that. He liked Sora. It was really too bad they wouldn't be staying longer than a few days.

o-o-o-o-o

After lunch they had three more classes, two of them separate from each other—history and English lit. Neither of them were comfortable with the situation, but they dealt with it out of necessity. At least they still had their mental connection, a feeling of each other still there even when they were in opposite ends of the school.

During lunch hour, after they had eaten, Sora and Kairi had helped them find their respective lockers, which meant they didn't have to carry everything around with them. This made getting to-and-from classes and storing their bags _during _said classes much easier.

They had also very helpfully showed them where the library and computer labs were, which was important for the sake of their case research. Sometimes school histories were hard to find outside of the school itself. They would try Internet searches, of course, but books and tombs were often just as helpful, if not more so.

"I told you this would suck."

"Oh, come on. It wasn't _that_ bad."

The walk from school back to the motel was relatively quiet. They were headed toward the wrong side of town, while most of the rest of the student body lived in the other direction.

"We didn't get anything done today, either." Roxas added with a slight twist of his lips.

"We got a lot done, actually." Ven corrected. "It was our first day, Roxas. We needed to get everything worked out and figure out where things were and that kind of thing. Now that we've got our bearings we can start nosing around tomorrow. And it'll be easier since we know Sora and his friends a little, so we can ask them some questions as long as we're careful. We can do some more research tonight as well."

Roxas snorted and cast a rueful look to his brother. "Oh yeah? Before or after our _homework?_"

"Homework first, Roxas." His twin chuckled. "We don't want to get in trouble on our second day of school, right?"

He rolled his eyes, but reluctantly agreed nonetheless. "Right."


	4. Chapter 3: Strange World

**Disclaimer:** _Kingdom Hearts_ characters and concepts belong to Disney and Squarenix. Various _Final Fantasy _characters and concepts belong to Squarenix. _Supernatural_ characters and concepts belong to WB, etc. This fic belongs to its' author.

**Notes:** This fic is my first time writing Riku, Vanitas or Kairi. I've dabbled with Sora a _very _tiny bit in the past, but not much. Anyway, I'm trying to keep them IC to the best of my ability, but… well, I apologise in advance if they're _too_ terribly OOC at any point.

**PHANTASMAGORIA  
Chapter Three: Strange World  
By Senashenta  
**

"_It's a strange world,  
It's a very strange world that leaves me  
Holding on to nothing when there's nothing left to lose."  
-From "Strange World" by Sarah McLaughlan_

Three days in and Roxas was already starting to get tired of eating every meal from the diner down the street. Sure, they had decent food for a greasy spoon—he and Ven had definitely eaten worse—but still. The bad food was one of the big things about being a Hunter that he just couldn't seem to get used to, no matter how much time passed. The sloppy-joes at lunch time earlier had actually been a pleasant change from the norm.

"How's your burger?"

"I've had better." Roxas shrugged and took another bite.

Across from him, Ven was working his way through a ceasar salad, having already finished a sloppily-made BLT. He was also scrolling through websites on his laptop. They had long ago finished their school work and were now getting down to business for why they were really in town.

"So I can't find anything like these recent killings… not in Destiny Islands, anyway." Ven was frowning, deep in thought. "But I did some more digging, and what I _did_ find were several similar cases from different locations around the world. Brutal murders, missing body parts, usually limbs… never so many at once before, though. Normally only one or two at a time, tops."

Roxas nodded. "Any clue what's doing it?"

"I'm still looking into that." The other teen shook his head. "Could be any number of things. Werewolf, maybe?"

"The lunar cycle is wrong for a 'wolf."

"True."

"I'd say wendigo, if it wasn't for the location. No _way_ there's a wendigo on the Islands."

"Also true."

"Hell, for all we know it's just your average run-of-the-mill cannibalistic psychopath axe-murderer."

"'_Run of the mill'_ cannibalistic psychopath axe-murderer. _Right_."

"It could happen!"

"Except Cloud wouldn't have sent us the case if he didn't think there was something to it."

It was probably a sad state of affairs when a cannibalistic axe-murderer wasn't considered "something."

They both sighed in union, going back to their food for the moment, though Ven only picked at his salad before finally setting his fork down, deciding he was done. Roxas finished his hamburger, crumpling the wrapper and tossing it across the room toward the trash can—it bounced off the rim and came to rest on the floor a foot away. He would pick it up later. For now he moved on to a half-empty bag of potato chips.

Ven discarded the remains of his salad, turning his attention back to the computer. "I'll keep looking, but I still think our best bet is to ask around school. Maybe there's a connection between the victims that we haven't figured out yet. Should be pretty easy if Kairi's right about our supposed popularity."

"Is it just me, or is that really weird, by the way?"

"Oh no, it's _definitely_ really weird."

They weren't used to being "popular" by any means. They were normally the weird ones, one way or another. Even before their parents had died, before they had left school to train with Cloud, they hadn't exactly fit in with the other kids. Their relationship was too strange, their psychic link making them closer than just siblings, or even the average set of twins. It was hard to be completely separate from your brother when you literally lived in each other's heads ninety percent of the time.

They had only really had one close friend growing up—Namine, who still lived in Twilight Town. She had been the one to give them their matching bracelets, and despite their rather unorthodox lifestyle, they still kept in touch with her as often as they could.

Propping his chin in his hand, Ven twisted his lips absently. "Well, anyway. Not much more we can do other than keep looking up reports online, maybe hit the library tomorrow." Then a pause, his fingers tapping against the table for a moment before he finally closed the computer and pushed his chair back to stand. "And before I forget, I have to go get us some more cash."

His own money had run out the previous day and the dinner they were currently eating had cost the last of Roxas'. If they didn't get more cash asap, they would have to start putting _everything_ on Cloud's cards, which neither of them wanted.

"Take your gun."

"Yes, Dad." Ven tucked his pistol into the waistband of his jeans, then dug through his bag, eventually locating and pulling out the homemade electronic code breaker that he used for hacking bank machines. That went into his pocket. "I'll be back. Want me to bring anything with me?"

"Maybe something to eat for breakfast tomorrow?"

"You mean something that's not pop-tarts?"

"Exactly." Roxas made a face.

Ven chortled softly. "Alright, will do."

A short wave and he was out the door.

o-o-o-o-o

The Destiny Islands city streets were just as neat and inoffensive during the night as they were during the day, apparently. They were lined with streetlights, clean and clearly well up-kept. It was quiet, just crickets chirping, the wind in the trees and the sound of the ocean that followed him everywhere throughout the city. All of this made Ven feel slightly silly over the fact that he was packing, despite knowing that having a weapon on him at all times was, as always, the prudent course of action for every Hunter out there.

Still, he couldn't help but marvel at how peaceful everything was—much more than any other city they had been to recently. It almost reminded him of when they had been young—the comforts of their home, playing in their front yard, looking up to Cloud and the radiant warmth of their parents' love. A normal, happy life—one without the monsters they were used to now.

Taking a deep breath, Ven sighed it out slowly, tilting his head up and letting his eyes skim across the dark sky. Even it was different than anywhere else: clear and dotted with hundreds of sparkling stars, not a cloud in sight. He almost wished they could stay, even after their job was done.

_Wishful thinking, Ven._

Roxas' little comment made him snort softly, but he didn't bother to respond. His steps slowed when his eyes caught on what he had been looking for—an ATM. Pausing at the machine, he looked up and down the street several times to make sure the coast was clear, then pulled the little code breaker out of his pocket.

It was cobbled together using various electronics he had cannibalized over the course of several months, a bank card and a miniature computer. It made it easy to get the money they needed, but Ven always felt a little guilty using it. Not that he wasn't used to stealing to get by—but if he continued to feel guilty over it, it meant he was still human, didn't it? Just like feeling sadness, regret or loss—and all of them were thankfully more than familiar emotions to both he and his brother.

Quickly and with practiced precision, Ven slotted the card into the bank machine, then turned on the device he held in his hands. It automatically charged a strong electromagnetic pulse—which was more than enough to kill the security cameras and erase the video hard drives. From there it was a simple matter of running the code break program. It quickly unlocked the ATM, at which point Ven punched in a dollar amount—in this case a thousand—and waited for it to process before spitting the money out at him in fifties and twenties. He pocketed the cash, then yanked the card back out—

And something collided with his back, shoving him forward and nearly knocking him completely off his feet. Ven barely managed to catch himself in time, half-stumbling into the bank machine and then shoving off, spinning at the same time.

"What the—"

There was nothing he could see, but there was definitely something there: it slammed into his side next, just a blur of white and black, the impact forcing the air from his lungs. Gasping for air, Ven hit the pavement, landing hard on his shoulder—he rolled quickly, ignoring the flare of pain, and yanked his pistol out even as he was clambering to his feet, whirling to face his attacker—and, once again, _nothing_.

_Crap crap crap—_

The next hit was harder, sharper, and pain lanced down his arm, blood splashing from three deep claw marks near his shoulder. Wincing, Ven whirled again, just in time for another slash—this one across his chest—and a full-body collision that shoved him violently backward and knocked the pistol from his hands. He heard it skitter away, but couldn't see where it had landed—and so his next best choice was his knife. He pulled it from his boot, holding it in front of himself defensively, despite the fact that he had no clue what it was he was facing off against.

_Ven, what's going on?!_

_Something—_

_Something _what_?_

_I don't know!_

Another blur of white and black in the corner of his vision. Ven spun on the ball of his foot, blood flecking across the pavement—and this time he managed to land a hit of his own.

Something shrieked into the night, voice high and angry, and sharp claws slashed forward, digging into his arms and shoving him backward into a wall. Ven yelped loudly as his hand convulsed, the knife dropping from his grip.

The creature that was holding him pinned against the brick and concrete was white-skinned, thin, slim and lithe with long talons and matching teeth, slotted into a wide, grinning, cavernous mouth in an otherwise featureless face. A deep cut ran across its' chest—where he had managed to slash at it and hit his mark. This was something he had never seen before—something he didn't recognize at all—and he was unarmed and now unable to defend himself against it.

Its' grip on him tightened, then dug in sharply, twisting, and Ven had to bite back a loud cry when the bone in his upper right arm snapped like a twig under the pressure. Blue eyes squeezed closed, the breath driven from his lungs again, even as the creature began to _pull_ on his now-broken arm. He could feel the bones separating, pulling apart, the muscles and tendons tearing, and it was _agony_, more pain than he had ever been in before, enough to make his eyesight blur around the edges.

_Ven! I'm coming! Where are you?_

_I'm—downtown—_

And then there was a series of loud _POPS,_ and the creature that was trying to tear him limb-from-limb abruptly screamed and released him. Ven, normally on Roxas' case for his brother's foul language, cursed under his breath, vision swimming, and half-slumped against the wall behind him, squinting as the thing weaved back and forth for a moment before vanishing into the night.

"Ah—Ven!" The voice was familiar, but didn't belong to Roxas. Ven shook his head in confusion, watching as the silhouette of a figure approached, then blinked slowly when recognition dawned on him. "Oh my God—we have to get you to a hospital!"

"…Sora?"

The brown-haired boy's blue eyes were wide as saucers and he was clearly shaking. In his hand was Ven's pistol, though he dropped it only a second later. It landed with a clatter, even as Sora was hurrying over to Ven's side, hands hovering as he attempted to figure out what to do—how to help—where to take hold to help the blonde up.

"Wh—what the hell _was that thing?_" And then a quick shake of his head. "N—never mind." One hand plunged into his pocket and he fished for his cell phone. "I'm calling an ambulance!"

"What…? No—no ambulance…" Ven protested, his good arm lifting. He grasped Sora's wrist with bloody fingers and pulled it downward. "Just gotta—get back home." Then a quick shake of his head, the movement making him dizzy, probably due to blood loss. "H—help me up."

"But—"

In the end, Sora agreed to help him back to the motel. And even in his current state, Ven still remembered to pick up the gun and his knife, and even the ATM code breaker. There would be nothing left to tell that he had been there besides the spatters of blood on the pavement. That was how it had to be, no matter what.

Stumbling his way back to the motel was a painful process, even with Sora helping to hold him up. The walk that had been so short before now seemed tediously long, filled with endless agony as he struggled to remain conscious long enough to reach Roxas and their dwindling stash of potions. He would take one and it would heal most of his injuries—the rest Roxas could patch up for him, if it came down to that. It wouldn't be the first time his brother had stitched him up, and he was certain it wouldn't be the last either.

"Are you sure—I mean—the hospital—"

"_No hospital_." His voice came out raspy. He cleared his throat, then coughed—and blood flecked in the air in front of him. That wasn't a good sign.

It was a little more than three blocks from the motel when they finally ran into Roxas. The other boy broke into a run when he spotted them. His eyes flitted from Ven to Sora and back again, a deep frown across his face, but he didn't say anything for the time being. Instead he tucked an arm around Ven's waist from the side opposite of Sora, hefted his brother and started walking, steps careful but hurried at the same time.

Despite his calm exterior, he was practically radiating frantic worry.

o-o-o-o-o

If Sora was surprised that they were staying at a motel, he didn't say anything about it. Roxas figured it was probably the least shocking thing he was dealing with at the moment, so it made sense. And anyway, Roxas had more important things to think about—like the fact that his brother was bleeding out all over the ground as they stumbled toward their room. They needed to get him inside and dealt with as quickly as possible.

"Here, we're in number fiv—"

Roxas broke off, steps stopping abruptly a few feet from their room. This forced Ven and Sora to stop as well: Ven muttered something inarticulate and possibly hallucinatory under his breath and Sora made a confused noise, frowning and chewing on his lip.

"Roxas, what—?"

"The door's open." Roxas echoed Sora's frown, the expression cutting deep across his face. The door was hanging open a crack—and he knew he had closed and locked it behind himself when he'd left. He released his brother with a murmured apology when Ven winced in pain, pulling out his own pistol and checking the clip before moving forward, leaving Ven and Sora to wait. "Stay there."

At the threshold he paused, listening as someone rustled around inside the room, then pushed the door open slowly with his free hand, stepping inside—then stopped abruptly when the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his temple, followed by the low click of it being cocked. Roxas froze, his gun-hand lifting, palm out as a placating gesture.

And then something furry and white launched itself at him from across the room, colliding with his midsection and making him gasp.

"Bolt?!"

The dog bounced back to prance around in front of him, tail wagging so hard it might very well have fallen right off. Roxas blinked, confused, and looked sideways—

"Roxas." The voice was more than just familiar.

Roxas shook his head, hurriedly dropping his pistol onto the table by the door, Ven and Sora forgotten for a split second. "_Cloud!_ What are you doing here?!"


End file.
